Журнал. World association for medical law. The COVID-19 pandemic. Volume 39 2

192 Medicine and Law Beginnings: Hesitation and Delay When at the end of December 2019, Chinese public health authorities reported several cases of acute respiratory syndrome in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, we did not pay too much attention. Since then we have learnt that the disease, known as the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) 2 , represents a completely new strain of coronavirus that has not been previously identified in humans. This novelty created a lot of uncertainty about the way the virus could spread, about the symptoms, and about the necessary measures to stop the pandemic. In January 2020, following the news about the Covid-19 epidemic that rapidly developed in Wuhan, it was like watching a terrible dystopian movie. It did not seem to be close. Even when scientists and doctors revealed that this virus could spread from human to human, people still did not realize the upcoming and real threat. This pandemic taught many things; among them that politics play a crucial role in fighting against coronavirus but also in shaping what one knows about it. In many countries affected by the pandemic, politics has become the medium through which scientific knowledge is channeled to the public: sometimes distorting it, sometimes emphasizing biased information. In the middle of February, Europe was not yet prepared for a pandemic, and the outbreak was still regarded as an isolated epidemic in a region of China. At the end of February, for example, Hungary, together with Austria and the Czech Republic, sent masks and necessary equipment to Wuhan. 3 Then everything changed suddenly when alarming news came from Italy, a country frequently visited by Hungarians and just 300 km away from the Hungarian border. In Hungary, the first political response to the pandemic was the establishment of the so-called Operational Group Responsible for the Containment of the Coronavirus Epidemic on January 31, 2020. The Chief Medical Officer, Cecília Müller, and the representatives of the Operational Group have held daily press conferences since then, reporting on Covid-19-related events and the measures taken by the government. 4 2 The causative virus is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS- CoV-2) 3 https://reliefweb.int/report/china/czech-republic-sent-material-aid-china-fight-coronavirus 4 1012/2020. (I. 31.) Korm. határozat a Koronavírus-járvány Elleni Védekezésért Felelős Operatív Törzs felállításáról